PitchingFan posted:This sparked my interest and I made a few phone calls. It does happen more than I thought. The top organizations are paying coaches to come watch particular games. The regular stuff that I knew happened is still going on and coaches are paid to use their fields, to come to showcases, and to work camps. But the new thing is for coaches to be paid to attend games that way the organization can guarantee players they will be seen by certain schools and it is also a draw for the teams they are playing. One guy even told me he knew a HC had been paid to come watch an organization team play at a big event for all of their games. They are also doing these tournaments now like showcases where the schools are paid to use their fields and the agreement is that the school will provide a coach and 4/5 other coaches from other schools at all games. The schools pay the other coaches out of their (rental fee) so the organization somewhat stays clean.
If this is happening, and I have no reason to doubt you, it makes paying for kids to play on second and third tier travel teams an even bigger waste of money than it already was. Only the biggest (i.e. costliest) programs are gonna be able to afford to do this. And when they do, that lessens the chances of kids on 2d/3d tier teams being seen.
I am curious to know whether organizations like PG sanction (at least tacitly) this kind of stuff. Tournament promoters sell kids/parents the dream of being seen and recruited. The kids/parents ought to already know that the deck is already stacked in favor of better teams/players. Not criticizing anyone for this. It's just a fact of life. But, beyond this, people assume that they are getting a level playing field compared to other similar teams. If there's a lot of pay-to-watch stuff going on, that may not be the case.